Russian republic in sex bomb alert

Petrozavodsk plastic pecker palaver

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Police in the Russian republic of Karelia were obliged to evacuate and cordon off a post office in the capital Petrozavodsk yesterday after staff reported a "suspicious parcel".

Bomb squad operatives moved in to check the package emitting "a sound resembling a ticking clock". The earth failed to move, however, when they opened it and found a vibrator.

A police spokesman explained: "It turned on accidentally and started vibrating."

Agreeably, the spokesman added that the suspect device would be handed back for dispatch to the addressee.

The Russian bomb squad chaps' approach to handling sex toys is less dramatic than that of their Brit counterparts, remarkably. Back in 2007, a similar incident at a post office in Hasland, Chesterfield, ended with a vibrator made safe in a controlled explosion. ®